spending time with God

Over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about how to encounter God more often and one of the radical conclusions I’ve come to is that in order to meet Him more, I need to pray more.

It’s like one of those strange research projects that company’s pay universities thousands of pounds for only to discover that the leading experts in their field have concluded the outstandingly obvious.

I’ve done it for free.

If you want to encounter God more, spend more time with Him.

For me I think that means more time devoted to prayer, more of those in-the-moment prayers, more time with other Christians praying. It was really good to get together with my church family this week to pray – I thrive around the faith and zeal of other Christians.

In thinking about Jeremiah’s prayer in chapter 12 over the last few weeks, it seems obvious to me that this is something he does a lot.

Do you want to encounter God more? Spend more time in prayer.

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2 Comments:

I quite agree – as long as prayer is not one sided and we don’t get away from His grace into ‘I must try harder / do more in order to be a more effective Christian’ syndrome! As well as the straight forward talking with God (verbally out loud or ‘in your head’), I find journaling useful. This is me writing out my love for Father and asking Him written questions through which He then answers. His answer may be me recording the immediate heart response He gives, or he may give a dream, place a ‘God Thought’ within me, lead me to the appropriate scripture at a later time etc… In doing this I have realised how much more God is speaking, by finding out what His voice is like, and come to find he is truly near without me first having to perform or reach a ‘standard of holiness’.
I also find ‘soaking’ useful. This is coming to Him with no agenda, listening to some music (with or without words) and letting Him minister to me through this. This has been a place I have often come to and has truly led me to still waters. Of course there is an initial natural inclination to want ‘to do’ for Father during these times, with the associated guilt felt by not actually ‘doing’ anything (just listen to those clammering voices in the head!!) , but letting Him ‘do’ for me has given me the the most deeply refreshing and calming times of my life.

Thank you Simon, this is a really helpful comment. I certainly don’t want to lead people into a performance led faith and agree that listening to God is an essential part of prayer. I have journalled at different times too and found it helpful.